BTW Mahindra should be really ashamed of their results. I have not heard any significant remark from them on this ,given that they sell an average of 3000 copies a month of this "rough-and-tough" SUV.

Protection/Impact Comparison:
Mobilio with Airbags-3star.

This was always my major concern. We owned a Safari followed by 2 Scorpios. I love the rock steady stability and spaciousness of the Safari but reliability has let me down. On another turf Scorpio is unstable and feels unstable on the ride front. But maintenance and reliability are few folds more than the Safari and hence a peace to own one. I have seen very few deaths in a Safari but many in Mahindras'.

But there is a problem with electric feature laden Mahindras'. we own an XUV 500 W8 2012 and after 4 years of ownership there are faults in Doors locks & rattling and electricals as there is an Airbag fault warning light beaming and the showroom guy says it costs Rs.4k to replace a sensor which we do not use. By the way the car has done just 25k in the past 4 years total urban use.

Can we start in this forum itself by not recommending tin-can cars when newbie buyers ask questions ? By not pooh-poohing strong and sturdy car models because they supposedly offer less than 20 kmpl ?

Although it cannot be stopped completely, we can make an effort to the ones who lends their ears to us about how cheap thrills strikes in the after-math, only knowledge will help to decide. On the flipside some tin-cans have positive points too like, one has a budget for a posh bike in 3L range makes a super good decision of buying a car for highway drives :-)

Mobilio was rejected because it was over priced. It cannot be said as unsafe. Anycar which gets 5 Stars means its Very Safe, 4 & 3 Stars means safe while anything less would be called as unsafe aka Kwid/Celerio/Swift etc. Also the body structure post crash depends on panels, if the APillar collapses then the car will loose its structure. Pillar is the important thing here. I am glad that Mobilio equipped with Airbags did well here considering the bashing public has given to this platform. But I would have been happier if Honda crash tested thier main models (City/Amaze/Jazz) rather then Mobilio.

Honda City and Jazz (with Airbags and ABS) are actually 5 star on global NCAP. However Honda seemed to have lost their safety card in the last 3/4 years when they decided to launch lower end models without the safety features. However even in 2008 when they launched the first gen Jazz, even the base version came with ABS and Airbags.
While Honda went down in safety (from base version stand point), companies like Toyota and VW started implementing safety features in the base version. So some of them did learn.

I think Honda is having a bad time. They invested in diesel quite late and when the time came to recoup , market had turned to petrol again. Cost cutting had caused quality and design issues , servicing had been stopped on Sundays (atleast in Kolkata 2014/15) and driver pickup and drop was being charged. Things like these caused customer to turn away.

Last edited by chayan; 26th September 2016 at 12:37 AM.
Reason: addition

And unfortunately in my opinion the 1st option above is true and get few questions in mind below

-How best is this EuroNCAP, is this similar to a CE marking on a product
-Only European agencies are superior in the world to dictate the safety norms
-Are Indian manufacturers are least bothered about safety
-All these European star rating tests are foolproof OR can be implemented in Indian kind of road/driving culture conditions
-If a car gets 5 star rating in this EuroNCAP is that superior in providing safety
-Is NCAP means only Airbags(when I read the case of VW Polo) OR Body built is important

disclaimar : I personally stand for any kind of safety aspect introduced, but open to discuss its real meaning and effect in real time

Excellent, excellent, you have uttered the words exactly in my mind. I have found someone like me, I have some doubts and concerns on methodology and realistic efficacy in NCAP crush tests.

At the end of the day none of these NCAPs matter, we just have to save our own caps and it lies only within us!

Thinking more about safety features will take you nowhere because all that matters is how alert you are while you drive and also keep in mind of the lives you carry with you, your family, friends or colleagues whoever it might be.

At the end of the day none of these NCAPs matter, we just have to save our own caps and it lies only within us!

Thinking more about safety features will take you nowhere because all that matters is how alert you are while you drive and also keep in mind of the lives you carry with you, your family, friends or colleagues whoever it might be.

Truly speaking that may not be in our hands it is decided by cosmos I felt after two fatal accidents.

At the end of the day none of these NCAPs matter, we just have to save our own caps and it lies only within us!

Thinking more about safety features will take you nowhere because all that matters is how alert you are while you drive and also keep in mind of the lives you carry with you, your family, friends or colleagues whoever it might be.

I beg to differ, since it's not always out of our control. Imagine, you are safely parked in an Alto, with the seat belt on, enjoying the music while your wife/gf is shopping, when a drunk truck driver totally crushes your car. (I pray this doesn't happen). What is the chance of survival? I'd say 5-10 %.

Now imagine the same scenario, but this time you're in a Ford Endeavour (which has a 5-star NCAP rating by the way). Now the chance of walking away (or being taken away, but with no major damage) should be at least 30-40%. Heck, even a Punto/Linea will (probably) make it 20-30%.

Now, imagine another scenario. You're going at 80-90 km/h and some suicidal chap drives onto the road. There's no time to brake, so you steer your mighty 2-ton Endeavour and save the idiot. Now imagine the same scenario in an Alto. Not much difference, infact the Alto is easier to steer so you break less of a sweat. Here's where your alertness came you save the day (and the chap).

There was no mistake of yours in the first scenario, but chance of survival varies with different cars, while in the second scenario, there was still no mistake of yours but still, change of cars made virtually no difference (if you didn't react correctly, that would've been an accident, therefore driver skill matters.).

It's not always in your hands, and not always totally dependant on luck.

So, I say buy a moderately safe car (NCAP or not just 2 airbags, ABS and a good build quality), drive with your loved ones in mind, follow traffic rules and then pray that nothing happens to you, for things that are not in your control.

What doubts and concerns you have about the methodology and efficacy of these. The article you linked talks about companies and dealers taking advantage of this. Of course, they will. It will be stupid of toyota to not market the etios/liva over the swift/dzire using the ncap crash tests. After all they spent a lot of money on making their cars safe while maruti was busy selling death traps and laughing all the way to the bank.

It is very unfair of the dealers to try to sell the lower models while taking advantage of a higher equipped models safety ratings. If honda dealer starts selling mobilio without airbags by saying mobilio got 3 stars, thats no good.
On the other hand, look at maruti, the swift/dzire got a big 0 even with airbags and abs. And they are selling over 30 thousand cars every month without making any change after they got that big Anda. In many other countries, they would have been sued by now. Whatever the flaws in methodologies and efficacies, the fact remains the same that grand i10, swift, xcent, dzire etc are very unsafe cars. And its not that the cars cant be made safe at this price point. Liva is priced quite similar to a swift. Its just that a maruti does not give a damn about safety of indian customers as the swift elsewhere did not get a 0, only the indian version got a 0.